


Just About

by ForNought



Series: Too Hot, Too Cold [3]
Category: Free!
Genre: M/M, Misunderstandings, Small arguments, Surprise appearances, death mention (but no actual death or danger occurs), lots of talking, parents who are right too often, very dramatic sousuke
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-26
Updated: 2016-03-26
Packaged: 2018-05-29 06:58:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,377
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6364042
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ForNought/pseuds/ForNought
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Spring has brought with it the same events as always. With graduation comes the tentative start of adulthood which is best celebrated with ice cream. As always Sousuke and Kisumi are both obviously dumb and Gou is a little less obviously so.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Just About

Sousuke had been easily irritable recently. He liked to pretend that the feeling was just a vague feeling and there was nothing that could be done about it. Unfortunately the underlying knowledge unfurled with the currents of his mind and all too easily was the reason for his uneasiness revealed.

The ground dropped away a few metres away, just behind the little fence interwoven with flora.

His shoe scuffed on the pavement as he overlooked the choppy sea ahead.

It was almost warm enough to be out without a jacket.

The gooseflesh on his arms didn’t melt away with the friction of his hands and he wished he had taken his mum’s advice to throw on a jacket before he dashed through the door. The windbreaker that was abandoned on his desk chair was getting a bit tatty and maybe he didn’t want scruffiness to mar the corners of his purposeful nonchalance.  

He had his wallet, his keys, his phone. He was well prepared enough.

It was spring again and Sousuke wondered how he hadn’t felt the steady rotation of the earth. Before he had even realised the significance of dates he was anticipating the same event as the year before.

The air was brisk but the sky was bright.

Inhaling too sharply had Sousuke’s nostrils stinging.  

He didn’t mind so much that he was being bitten by the winds when the sun, teasingly cool despite the hopeful brightness, was a glare high in the sky. Wisps of cloud had thickened while Sousuke waited and he was gritting his teeth against shivers as the brisk breeze buffeted the trees that lined the street. There were only a few of them and their narrow trunks bent will the will of the wind.

There wasn’t much to worry about. The branches of the trees flexed with the greenness of their growth and it seemed unlikely they were brittle enough for a sudden tug in the air to snap. He was safe where he stood. 

“Did you wait long?”

Sousuke swallowed against the choking feeling in his throat and breathes deeply to steady himself. He turned to Gou as she made her approach, footsteps quiet, hands combing through her ponytail swept over her shoulder. Her footfalls cracked twigs and scuffed against the unkempt path.

The world dropped away behind Sousuke. The wind and the waves muted. Gou’s eyes scrunched shut and her hands flew down to hold tight the hem of her skirt. Sousuke’s ankles froze.

“Why are you so late?”

“I’m early too, you know,” Gou stomped her feet more purposefully, rooting herself down against the stirring in the air. She shoved her wrist in Sousuke’s face, the watch face blurring as she waved her arm and by the time Sousuke’s eyes focused on the hands her arms were folded across her chest. “I knew that you would be here _really_ early. Seeing as you have nothing else going on.”

“I have lots of things going on. Today’s just my day off,” Sousuke shrugged.

It wasn’t a lie. He had spent most of the days in recent weeks checking stock and manning the counter at his parents’ shop. He hadn’t even gone out of his way to walk to the shop he frequented in the summer, bought bag-fulls of snacks and abandoned it all after the second bite into a crisp, realising it was a task he couldn’t really face. He had a routine now. He looked forwards to eating meals with his family, even contributed to the cooking on some days, he’s work in the shop doing whatever he needed to do without even rolling his eyes at the manager, he’d send emails when things were quiet, he’d waste a few hours on the internet, he’d try to get a good night’s sleep.

With a day off there was nothing in his routine that would have prevented him from standing and waiting for Gou as soon as the sun rose. He didn’t mind Gou knowing how pathetic he was seeing as he had seen hidden sides of her, but the potential to have the fact spread to certain other people kept Sousuke from being entirely truthful with her.  

“Is this it then?” Sousuke asked. Gou was shivering. Sousuke was being selfish. “You’ve graduated now and you actually came to hang out with me?”

“I have plans to celebrate later,” Gou replied as breezily as she could from her clenched jaw. Her arms were tight across her chest. If Sousuke hadn’t forgotten his jacket at home he would have at least had some warmth for her. Gou spoke again, “Besides, you-“

As did Sousuke, “We should go.”

Gou looked speculative as her lips closed, twitched, and parted for her to speak again. “Besides, you did the same for me last year.”

Sousuke had no idea why she was so firm in her word or why she had to say it with so much emphasis. He had only been trying to fix the situation, make it so that Gou no longer froze. What Gou had said wasn’t entirely true. The circumstances differed some.

Sousuke had ditched Rin and his joint plans with the Iwatobi lot – a few hours in an Okonomiyaki restaurant that he frequented on the days he was feeling lax with his diet. He was minutes away from starting his own positively mundane meal when he got a message from Gou. She had slipped away from the merriment and Sousuke didn’t have to go too far to find her. Kisumi was there too, flushed with his own brand of happiness and shoving a carton of fruit milk at Sousuke as he arrived.  

Gou was a different sort of person who may have had to postpone plans with any number of people. 

“You’re always the one who is inconvenienced,” Sousuke muttered. “Come on, let’s go somewhere warmer.”

Gou was a beat late when she agreed but Sousuke didn’t need to mention it when she was fiddling with her phone as she walked.

Sousuke didn’t really want to go back home but that was the only building that he knew of nearby. He averted his gaze from the familiar walls as he tried to recall some place they could idle. If he didn’t look towards home there was no chance of chagrin as his mother knowingly smiled at her ignored words.

Gou’s hand looped around Sousuke’s wrist. The skin of her palm warmed his whole arm despite her chill.

“Come on,” Gou said, no longer distracted by her phone, tugging at his arm. “I’ve wanted to go to that new place for a while.”

Asking yielded no answers. The ‘new place’ allegedly opened some months ago but that was all Sousuke found out before they arrived. The exterior looked non-descript enough. One large lattice window stood beside the door, dark wood gave it an aged feel that might have been the reason Sousuke hadn’t even noticed that it was new, let alone that it existed at all. The scent of coffee beans hit the back of Sousuke’s nose as Gou opened the door, the tinkle of the bell above them was soft, and as Sousuke looked around it looked like the place was very flammable.

Stained woods veneered every surface aside from the glass counters teasing at cakes and confections with impressive structural engineering.  

After some hushed squabbling at the counter Sousuke was feeling happy with himself as he placed their tray down at the table Gou had decided on. She rolled her eyes as he took the plate with the thing his eyes had first been drawn to as he spotted the menu on the wall. A Belgian waffle topped with marshmallows, a rainbow of hundreds and thousands and bubble-gum ice cream.  

“What was this called?” Sousuke asked as he slowly rotated the plate, searching for the best place to start working away at the pastry with his spoon.

“If you think you’re going to try to embarrass me you can think again,” Gou huffed through a mouthful of chocolate brownie sundae. She had muttered, ‘the bubble gum waffle thing,’ to the smiling woman behind the counter in much the same way. 

“If I don’t know what it is called I suppose I’ll just have to get you to flirt with the girl making the ice creams again to get me another. Look how huge these scoops are.”

“I was not flirting,” Gou protested, the flames in her cheeks surprisingly having no effect on the ice cream before her.

Sousuke tilted his head, mimed tucking hair behind his ear as he bit into his lower lip. He fluttered his eyelashes and mumbled, “The bubble gum waffle thing would be kind of cool. If it’s not too much trouble. And your contact information while you’re at it. Tee hee!”

 “I’ll beat you up, you know,” Gou said with a defiant tilt to her chin.

Sousuke smiled wanly in reply. “Gou, you sweet child, I’ve seen you lose fights with insects.”

She pouted and weakly kicked his shin beneath the table before muttering, “Chigusa will beat you up for me then.”

Sousuke rushed to swallow his mouthful of waffle. It was delightfully fluffy, though the bubble gum ice cream was far too sweet as it congealed as a stodgy lump in his throat. It would have been one of the most embarrassing way to go, especially if people found out he had suffered a death by bubble gum waffle thing. He sipped his glass of water and blinked the water from his eyes as he saw the simmering of Gou’s face.

“So the two of you are…”

“Friends first. Whatever she wants afterwards.”

Gou was very composed as she chewed a fragment of brownie. 

“That’s nice,” Sousuke said.

“I guess so.”

“What is she doing in April?”

Gou swept a few stray strands behind her ear. Still didn’t look up at Sousuke. “She’ll be going to Tottori University. So she’ll be nearby.”

“Nearby? So that means you will be…?”

“Don’t make me say it,” Gou mumbled, the corners of her lips pulling up and down in a confused grimace.  

“Do you think I’d be offended if you told me you were going to do something with your life? I think it is good that you’re going to university. You’re a smart girl. You shouldn’t waste it.”

Gou’s eyes were wide and her pupils trembled for the seconds that she stared. She blinked a few times and returned her gaze to her sundae.

The hustle and bustle of other diners surrounded them and perhaps Gou hoped her words would be swallowed in the unfocused hum of chatter, the tinkle of the bell above the door, the clink of cutlery and crockery, the whooshing of steamed milk from the coffee machines, the kaching of the cash registers, the trickle of water rinsing off the scoops, the whump of fridge doors slamming shut.

Gou still didn’t say anything and Sousuke supposed he had to exert some amount of force to get an answer out of her.

“What?”

“Nothing,” Gou said as innocently as she could manage. She couldn’t manage very much.

“No, come on,” Sousuke prompted as he nudged Gou’s ankles with the toe of his shoe. “You have to tell me. After that look you have to tell me what’s up.”

Gou squirmed in her seat as she lifted her feet from the floor, careful with the movements of her arms above the table as she scooped another spoonful of sundae. She fixed Sousuke with her suspicious gaze as she put her feet back down. Sousuke smiled innocently and Gou sighed.

“I’m not going.”

“What?”

“I’m not going to university. I’m going to stick around and do some other stuff. I already have a job,” Gou said very quickly and quietly. She shovelled a gargantuan spoonful of sundae into her mouth and Sousuke was impressed how with just the tiny spoon she had rivalled the scoops served by the girl behind the counter. 

He watched as Gou furiously chewed, though her puffed out cheeks didn’t shrink much. She deflated, exhaled through her nose and took her time as she tried not to choke on her food. When she finally swallowed her ice cream she pouted as she reached for her glass of water.

“Whatever,” she grumbled.

“It would be hypocritical of me to say anything about that,” Sousuke said diplomatically.

“I, on the other hand, have absolutely every right to tell you how stupid of a decision that would be.”

For the second time that afternoon, Sousuke could imagine his obituary in the newspaper. It wasn’t very complimentary. It was a good job Kisumi’s appearance didn’t actually kill him.

Kisumi was all smiles as he deposited himself in one of the empty chairs, the existence of which Sousuke couldn’t find too much issue with. All of the tables seated four people so it was not as though he could suspect Gou of planning this beforehand. She had looked just as surprised as Sousuke felt to see Kisumi and he knew she wasn’t much of an actress.

“You’re here,” Sousuke said lamely.

“So are you. As always.” There didn’t seem to be too much bite to Kisumi’s words but Sousuke felt the gentle nips all the same. Kisumi twisted in his seat to drape his jacket over the back of it and when he turned back to face the table Sousuke regretted his own lack of expectation. “I wonder what I should get.”

“Does it matter?”

“You’re right. I should just share yours.”

Sousuke’s arms shielded his waffle before Kisumi could even begin to reach out.

“No. This is all mine.”

Kisumi huffed and made a show of acting pitiful as he stood from his seat and complained about the lack of kindness from his friends. Sousuke waited until Kisumi was occupied at the counter before he dropped his hands from protecting his plate. “I know I said it would be hypocritical of me to say anything but I do sort of agree with Kisumi.”

“Me too. You _are_ cruel and unloving.”

“Gou.”

“It doesn’t matter anyway. I already made the decision weeks ago.  I’m happy to live with it. Are you saying you aren’t happy with the decision you made?”

There were a lot of things that Sousuke wasn’t happy with. He couldn’t be sure that certain decisions he had made had anything to do with whether or not he was happy.

Well. He was more than vaguely aware of decisions he had regretted in the past. Decisions he had been happy to live with until he actually had to live through the consequences and learn to survive his own lack of foresight.   

 

“Ah! I am so full,” Kisumi groaned as he lay on the sofa in Sousuke’s living room. 

Sousuke had only been able to slide his take-away box of cheesecake into the fridge and prodded at Kisumi’s knees until he moved his feet and let Sousuke sit down.

“Just in case you were wondering, it’s later now. You can tell me why you’re here now.”

“Hmm?” Kisumi peered blearily over his shoulder. Sousuke had no idea how kisumi had managed to look this tired in the space of a few seconds. “I already said. Hayato’s a whole year older now so I had to come and see him. I only have three years left before he becomes a middle-school student. What if it’s not cool to hang out with your brother in middle-school and he doesn’t love me anymore?”

“You’re so stupid.”

Kisumi hummed lethargically and stretched his feet back out on Sousuke’s lap. Sousuke hoped that Kisumi wasn’t really thinking of falling asleep here because he was much too heavy of a sleeper for Sousuke to be happy with sitting and entertaining himself with his phone.

“In case you weren’t aware, Hayato’s not here right now.”

“I know that.”

“So might there be another reason you’re back?”

Kisumi shot up, grinning slyly at Sousuke as he combed his hair out of his face with his fingers. The sharpness of his eyes held no trace of the sleepiness that weighed down his body just moments before. He dug his toes into Sousuke’s thigh and grinned wider at the lack of reaction.

“Oh my god. Why are you so cute?”

“I’m not,” Sousuke protested weakly. He honestly didn’t mind Kisumi calling him cute so much as he minded the usual patronising that followed.

“You are. You are the very cutest. I came to see you, okay?”

“I suppose so,” Sousuke said casually. Then he pinched Kisumi in the side. “You haven’t been replying to my messages though. And then you come back and act like nothing has happened.”

“Oh, that,” Kisumi said as though ignoring Sousuke had been some minor circumstance that hadn’t meant very much. Perhaps to Kisumi it hadn’t mattered much because he had other friends and university work and some casual work in the city that he never went into much detail about. Sousuke only had work at his parents shop and messages from Kisumi to look forward to. The lack of either of these things gnawed at Sousuke’s insides. “I’ve been annoyed with you.”

“So you ignore me for, like, a week without telling me why.”

“I was coming back anyway. I didn’t think it would matter that much.”

Sousuke waited until he was sure his voice wouldn’t give him away before he said, “It didn’t matter.”

“I’m sorry if you felt hurt by it. It’s just…” Kisumi rubbed at the back of his neck as he fixed his gaze to Sousuke’s shoulder. “You never want to visit me. No matter how many times I have asked you just change the subject. It feels like you don’t want to put any effort in.”

“I have work,” Sousuke said. It was strange how hoarse his voice sounded in his ears.

“Don’t you get any days off?” Kisumi asked, the emphasis to his words carried an obvious sharpness. Sousuke wondered why he felt so scraped with the knowledge that today was in fact a day off. Kisumi knew that much.

“It’s awkward to organise things.”

“What’s awkward? You take a train and then stay with me. Easy.”

Of course it sounded easy when Kisumi said it like that. A lot of things sounded easy when Kisumi was the one to say them. As children it had been sneaking sips of sake and skipping school whenever the fancy struck them. When they were in middle-school the easiest thing for Kisumi seemed to be making new friends, replacing lost links and forging the shine of childhoods well spent skimming stones, splashing in the sea, kicking cans, sharing last-minute answers to homework, and playing basketball.

Last summer Kisumi had made many more things sound easy: swapping contact information, meeting up for old time’s sake, the cautious press of lips.

A lot of the time things were not quite as easy as they sounded.

“It might be a bit late to ask this question,” Kisumi began with an uncharacteristic tremor. He lifted his gaze, the slope of his shoulders secondary to the fists on his thighs and the furrow of his brow. “What are we doing? What do you think this is?”

This too was another of the easy things. Sousuke had no idea what he was supposed to say. How he felt, what he thought he should say, what he thought Kisumi wanted him to say, and what Kisumi wanted to hear could all have been different things. There were too many possibilities for Sousuke to confidently choose an answer. It had been much easier to tell a white-lie, leave the open possibility of returning to swimming. That had been easy. This, however…

Kisumi shifted. He lifted his feet from Sousuke’s lap. His eyes were dark.

“I love you.”

Kisumi froze. Just for a second. Sousuke felt his heart stuttering in his chest far too many times in that single second. Time continued its constant when Kisumi shook his head and stood up.

“You can’t say things like that so lightly.”

Kisumi tripped and it took a moment for Sousuke’s mind to catch up to his hands clasped around Kisumi’s arm and the tension in his body. Kisumi righted himself and tugged gently. Sousuke tightened his grip.

“I mean it. I’m not just saying it carelessly. Okay? Whatever. I just love you.”

“What does that even mean?” Kisumi grumbled against the flare in his face.

“Nothing, it doesn’t mean anything,” Sousuke snapped. He could hardly attempt to explain it now when he was already withering as he singed at his own cringe-worthy words. “But you love me too, don’t you?”

“Why are you so cute? And stupid?”

Sousuke pressed his lips together against his own retort. He needed to know he was right about this. It would hardly have been fair of Kisumi to spend so many years making things sound easy when he couldn’t confirm or deny something so easy himself.

“So what if I do? Is it wrong for me to want to spend time with the person that I love?”

“You just have to give me some time,” Sousuke said, loosing his hold on Kisumi’s arm somewhat as he slid his hands down to Kisumi’s fingers.

“Time? We’ve had a year of whatever this is supposed to be. Am I supposed to wait another year without so much as a visit before you decide maybe you don’t like me anymore?”

“Um. What?”

Kisumi wiggled his arm free and sat beside Sousuke on the sofa.

“I didn’t even know what this was supposed to be, you know. The kissing, and the flirting, and the other stuff, like you acted like it was nothing. It’s me who sends the first message, or calls you, or makes the effort to come and see you.”

“Okay? I already knew I was terrible,” Sousuke said. The mood didn’t lighten as he wanted it to but at least Kisumi smiled for a second.

“I was doing all the work for the things that mattered to me. This whole time you’ve had me wondering about what you’re doing, who you’re spending time with, whether I’d be a nuisance if I contacted you. I really didn’t think you cared very much. And then you say you love me. What am I supposed to think?”

This had to be a trick question, Sousuke was certain. He couldn’t work out what the trick was. He very carefully replied, “You’re supposed to think that I love you?”  

Sousuke wondered why his mum chose that moment to loudly open the front door and announce her presence. She bustled into the living room, red in the cheeks from the briskness of the wind, and removed her scarf with loops of her arm.

“Ah, Kisumi-kun? How lovely to see you. Are you well?”

“I’m fine, thank you. And you?”

“I’m fine.”

Sousuke was certain his mum was about to expand and now was really not the time. As she took the breath for the rest of her words he interrupted with, “I bought you cheesecake.”

“Ooh! That’s nice. Would you mind helping me find it?”

“It’s in the fridge,” Sousuke said. Apparently the weight in his words was not enough to convey that now was _really_ not the time.

“Then I am sure it will just take a second.”

Sousuke surrendered. He stood but made a show of how inconvenienced he felt by it. He crossed the room quickly and his mum followed at just as urgent a pace.

“What did you do to that poor boy?” She hissed as soon as they were safely behind the kitchen door.

“What? Nothing!”

“Don’t try that with me, Sousuke. He looked devastated. I want you to go in there and apologise right away.”

“Okay, ‘I love you, Kisumi, but actually I take that back because my mum told me to apologise’. I don’t think that’s how things are supposed to go.”

His mum squinted at him incredulously. “You told him you love him? You must have said it wrong.”

Sousuke had no idea how that could be possible. In fact there hadn’t been a better way for Sousuke to say it, at the most crucial time when he _needed_ Kisumi to know that he had feelings and a lot of them were about Kisumi. Still, his mum prodded him in the spine and insisted that he had said it wrong, impossible or not.

 

 

“Hi,” Sousuke said when he went back to the living room. His mum had been right. Kisumi did look to be in very low spirits. His shoulders were hunched and his hands were pressed between his thighs. His voice sounded thick when he replied.

“Hi. Where’s your mum?”

“In the kitchen. If you’re still here when my dad gets back there was never any cheesecake, okay?”

“Got it,” Kisumi said, the faintest of smiles pulling at his lips as he gave a thumbs up. His face dropped with his hand and Sousuke had to wonder where he was to start.

“I really do love you, you know.”

Kisumi rubbed at the back of his neck, gazed down at the floor, and laughed hollowly. “We could have avoided all if this if you hadn’t reminded me that I was mad at you.”

“I didn’t know you were mad at me.”

Kisumi shrugged.

Sousuke took another chance. He was quiet as he crossed the room and sat beside Kisumi and he was slow as he reached for Kisumi’s fingers and clasped them in his own.

“How many years do you think we could have spent like this though? Not knowing what any of this was? Not knowing how the other felt? Which is still sort of true for me. Do you love me?”

Kisumi huffed and pressed his hand to his mouth. He tilted his head to glance at Sousuke.

“Yeah.”

“Good. I’m sorry for being the worst boyfriend ever. We are boyfriends, right?”

“That’s kind of what I have been working towards,” Kisumi mumbled into his hand.  

His voice was flat in the way that made Sousuke’s stomach jump. Kisumi was close to a smile. His hand was pressed against his lips, against the threatening curve of happiness. 

“I will try to be better.”

 


End file.
